Storing Tomatoes and Crockpot Tomato Sauce

Cook's Country and America's Test Kitchen have been a source of inspiration to many home cooks.  Personally I really like the idea that things are tried, tested out and re-tried to get things right.  Having someone else doing that eliminates a lot of trouble and waste in your own kitchen. 

Recently, Cook's Country published an article on how to store tomatoes.  You can read the full article here: Storing Tomatoes.  In short, they found that storing tomatoes stem side down allowed the tomatoes a longer shelf life.  Since I grow a lot of tomatoes in the summer time, this is invaluable to me; especially because it is often several days before I can give some of them away.

Another tip for storing tomatoes:  Do not put them in the refrigerator.  There are two reasons for this.

1. Tomatoes loose their texture and freshness when stored cold.
2. Cold stored tomatoes have less flavor - at least until they warm up a bit.

"Yeah but," you may say, "I need to be able to store them until I can use them."  Granted, but the best bet is to use them as they ripen.  Keep them, stem-side down in a colander or bowl on the kitchen counter.  How do you know if a tomato is really ripe?  Depending upon the variety it will have a very deep red color and give ever-so-slightly to pressure.

So, still have too many tomatoes to use fresh or cook?  How about making your own tomato sauce?  I append here a couple of links to tomato sauce recipes that you can find online as well as my own.  Enjoy!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipes/Pasta/Pasta-Sauces/Tomato-Sauce/Top.aspx

http://homecooking.about.com/od/condimentrecipes/r/blsauce49.htm

My own recipe for tomato sauce varies from time to time, but at its most basic (without olive oil, garlic, onion, parsley, oregano or other Italian spices) consists of the following:

Simple Crockpot Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2-3 lbs of tomatoes seeded and peeled.
• 1 teaspoon (or to taste) of Kosher salt.
• 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
• 1 tablespoon of generic honey (do not use any highly flavored type such as clover) - again, adjust to taste.

Directions:

• Cut the seeded and peeled tomatoes in half and place them in a crockpot. (I use a crockpot because I have better results than in a pan on the stove.)  Be sure to cover the crockpot with its lid.  :-)
• Turn the crockpot to its lowest setting above "warm" and let cook for 6-8 hours.
• Stir the mixture every couple of hours and check the texture and consistency.  I usually mash the tomatoes a bit each time to get a finer consistency.
• When you judge that the cooking has given you a fairly thick and somewhat smoother sauce than you started with, turn off your crockpot and allow the mixture to cool.
• When the mixture is cool enough not to burn you, process in a blender to make it even smoother - depending upon your needs.

Can or store in refrigerator up to 10 days or in a freezer up to 3 months.